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Fun fact: semiconductor effects are often reversible! A light emitting diode is an inefficient photovoltaic panel, and vice versa. This is relevant here because
by itishappy 1y ago
Fun fact: semiconductor effects are often reversible! A light emitting diode is an inefficient photovoltaic panel, and vice versa. This is relevant here because the same effect that allows you to stimulate the junctions using high intensity IR light happens in reverse: a stimulated junction emits IR light which can be detected through a thin enough package. With the right camera you could in theory take a video of specific junctions activating on chip. Efficiency makes this difficult in practice. I don't know how many photons you get per junction per clock cycle but it's not many, and those photons still need to make their way out of the package and be picked up by your sensor. I suspect getting a useful signal involves seriously overvolting the chip and/or underclocking it, so I'm not sure how "functional" of a test it would be.
Wish I could remember the name of the company that was working on commercializing this...
- diggan 1y ago> Fun fact: semiconductor effects are often reversible! A light emitting diode is an inefficient photovoltaic panel, and vice versa Another fun example: Manually rotating a DC motor produces current! Might make sense if you start out with generators I suppose, but as someone who used a DC motor "the other way" first, it was kind of counter-intuitive.
- ryoshu 1y agoA speaker is an inefficient microphone and vice-versa.
- oskarkk 1y agoI once connected a microphone to the audio output by mistake. You can imagine how confused I was when the microphone started playing music.
- itishappy 1y agoExamples off the top of my head include: * Electromagnetism (motors/generators) * Photoelectricity (LEDs/PVs) * Thermoelectricity (TEGs/Peltier coolers) * Piezoelectricity (crystal oscillators) Anybody got others?
- RetroTechie 1y ago> Piezoelectricity Ceramic capacitors can have similar issues: apply voltage, part warps a tiny bit. @ the right frequencies some (mechanical) resonance effects might come into play. Yay! But I have a hard time imagining this to be a real-world problem. Edit: "microphony" or "microphonics" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphonics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphonics Just an idea: coil whine might be reversible too. Vibrate coil, get some (noise in) inductor current. Oh yeah: don't yell too loud at your (spinning) harddrives.